Could you explain new filter features?

[brahman]

Hi Igor,

could you please explain the new filter features a little bit more in detail and with more elaborate samples?

Thanks.

brahman

[grigsoft]

Well, I would point out just few main new features, maybe I would add more later.
Consider you are sync'ing following folder structure:

Code: Select all

D:\project\
------------Dat                           (A)
------------Subproject1
----------------Dat                      (B)
------------SubProject2
----------------Dat                       (C)

1. Include folders filter
Before: if you set filter to "Dat", only first (A) folder will be included. SubProject folder will be tested, and since it does not match, it will be excluded.
Now: All 3 Dat folders will be included. You can still use "\Dat" syntax to get previous results.

2. Excluded folders filters
No changes with default formatting here, but new syntax added: if you specify "SubProject*>" as exclude folder filter, all Dat folders will be synced, although they are located within excluded folders. Only files within root "SubProject" will be skiped.

3. Extended file filters.
Suggest now that both SubProject folders include rtf and html files, and you want to sync only rtf from SubProject1, and only html from Subproject2. I know this sounds weird, but that's most simple example. Before you would need to create 2 Sessions, since you could not configure it in one. Or maybe even 3, if you want to sync all .doc files in other folders too. Now it's possible to make file filter including "subproject1\*.rtf; subproject2\*.html; *.doc". This means:
- doc file is always OK;
- rtf file is only OK if it in subproject1;
- html file is only OK if it in subproject2.
This feature is not so often required, and it's always possible to live without it, but in some cases it could be helpful. And, most important:
- it was easy to implement
- it does not make interface harder to use,
so I have added it too.

This is how it all was planned to work.

[brahman]

This is very good. Great work! Especially point 3 I was missing before and it will come in very handy.

I assume that the filters in point 3 will not just work for pure extensions, but also for f.e. "subproject1\contracts*.rtf; subproject2\website*.html; letter?.doc" - is that correct?

Will this change possibly require some people to change their existing sessions, since now they will get different results using their filters than prior to this release? If so, maybe you need to communicate this more clearly to avoid unexpected happenings when a current user upgrades to this release and make clear (s)he changes sessions to the backslash folder filter.

Since the syntax is a bit involved and - as you already remarked - did not involve any changes to the interface, I would suggest to include some version of your more elaborate explanation above in the help file. I noticed that the basic explanation is already there.

And it would also be extremely helpful if one has the filter dialogue open and could press F1 for help and the appropriate help page would come up. Right now if I press F1 at that point nothing (no help) comes up.

Regards,

Brahman

[Spitfire_ch]

I second both, Brahmans "thank you" and his suggestions

- spit

[grigsoft]

Thank you for comments! Yes, since this case caused some questions, I will probably copy this topic to help too.
As for problem with existing users - first, nobody reads docs anyway. Second, it's easy to see that you are going to copy more files then expected. But I will mark out this information somehow in help.

Filters dialog - do you mean the one in Options? There is help page for it. But I will add some refs to full syntax details.

[brahman]

I mean the one in the folders tab and then click on "Include all Folders" where you would actually enter the syntax for the folder filter. When you press F1 at that point the cursor changes to a sandclock briefly but no help screen appears whatsoever.

Regards,

B.

[grigsoft]

OK, Thanks!